1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a marking object with at least one object carrier and at least one object blank held by the object carrier, the object being markable by a marking device. Furthermore, the invention also relates to a marking device for marking such a marking object with at least one marking unit, at least one marking object holding device and at least one defined or definable marking pattern, the marking unit and the marking object holding device being movable relative to one another in the main transport direction.
2. Description of Related Art
Marking objects of the type under consideration have long been known and are used in industrial and commercial practice, often within the framework of housing and connection identifications, for example, in the form of labels, of self-adhesive or clip-in identification strips, in the form of identification cards, notch strips, stick-in tags, tag plates, clamp strips, marking sleeves, marking tags or other molded articles. These objects are generally held in a larger number of items by the object carrier. For molded articles, the object carriers are often frames, for example, of plastic, the object being joined to the object carrier which is made as a frame by way of a crosspiece which constitutes a scored site. By separating the crosspiece, the molded part can then be released from the object carrier.
For flat object blanks, therefore especially for labels or marking tags, several labels or marking tags are located next to one another on a flat object carrier, often a flat, coated paper web or preferably a plastic injection molding.
The marking objects for marking of the object are conventionally inserted into a marking device or into a marking object holding device of the marking device and are drawn in by the marking device, whereupon the object blanks are provided with a marking pattern, generally alphanumeric characters. The marking unit responsible for the actual marking is generally a printer or a printing head which performs marking by applying ink. These printers have been known for a long time, the printer generally being intended for printing on paper. A printer with which marking objects of plastic which have several marking tags as the object blanks can be printed is known, for example, from German Patent Application DE 10 2006 003 056 A1.
However, the marking unit can also be a pressing or engraving tool which by applying pressure or by metal cutting delivers the given marking pattern into the respective object blank.
The marking of a marking object with known marking devices is subject to some disadvantages. For example, in practice, often only a few of the objects encompassed by the marking object are needed at the same time so that marking objects are only partially marked in one pass, i.e., only some of the object blanks are marked, and the marking objects with the remaining unmarked object blanks are generally not further used, but are disposed of unused as scrap.
Furthermore, in the operation of a marking device, it must be accurately watched that the marking objects are held and guided in the uniquely correct orientation by the marking object holding device since the marking pattern otherwise is incorrectly applied to the marking object. In particular, for asymmetrical marking objects or object blanks located asymmetrically in the object carrier, misalignment of the marking object in the marking object holding device leads to faulty marking of the object blanks which then can no longer be further used.
Therefore, when using different marking objects, for example, when using marking objects of different manufacturers or also only when using different types of marking objects, suitable set-up—parameterization—of the marking device must be observed. This parameterization conventionally comprises consideration of the material comprising the marking object because, for example, it dictates how thickly the ink is applied when executing the marking, or for example, also with what temperature the inscribed object should be subsequently dried or with which irradiation intensity the object should be irradiated. Faulty parameterization of the marking device, therefore parameterization which does not consider the particulars of the marking object used, likewise leads to the marking objects not being correctly marked and only becoming scrap.
Schoedinger patent application publication US 2007/0171447 A1 discloses a printing system including a printing sub-system in the form of a printer assembly and a method of registering data according to the orientation of media having one or more labels and one or more radio frequency based data storage device. In order to decide whether or not an image or media has to be rotated or flipped as it passes through the image fixing system, the current orientation of the media is compared to an expected orientation, and if they do not match, an image registration operation is performed before an image is fixed on a label portion of the media. Schoedinger refers only to a marking object where the information is stored in an RFID-tag 88. Additionally, the RFID-tag 88 is fixed directly on the object blanks (label) and not on a part of the carrier which becomes separated from the object blanks when each object blank is detached from the carrier. As a result, instead of being able to use a single identification means with information applicable to all of the object blanks, such information must be provided on every object blank, on the one hand, and identification means that are not need once the object blank is separated from the carrier for the object blank, must still travel with the separated object blank, on the other hand.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,223,030 to Fessler et al. discloses systems and methods for determining physical location of RFID tags on embedded print media in which pre-programmed position data is read from a tag on print media having multiple tags embedded thereon and is compared to position data received in a print request data stream to determine the position of at least one tag on the print media. However, here again, the RFID tags are not on a carrier which becomes separated from the labels as they are removed, and instead a cut sheet of print media has a plurality of labels and a plurality of pre-programmed radio frequency tags, at least one the RFID tags being provided on each label, with none being located on the cut sheet.